


he shared my life

by a_nybodys



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: (at some parts), (but like on purpose), Angst, Apologies, Crying, Forgiveness, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Death, Run-On Sentences, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_nybodys/pseuds/a_nybodys
Summary: Whizzer tries to apologize to Trina before it's too late.





	he shared my life

The hospital room was dark, the only light slanting in from nearly closed blinds. Blinds that painted jailbird stripes over Whizzer’s sickly form. Jason had fallen asleep in the middle of playing a game of chess and Marvin carried him out to Trina’s car while she packed up the chess set and tupperware that once held soup made for Whizzer. The room is silent save for the soft clicking of chess pieces against each other as she gathered them up and into the beat-up cardboard box. Trina silently wished Mendel had come, but that wasn’t fair, really. She knew he had a patient who asked to come in late last minute. It just felt so… awkward what with Marvin’s helplessly depressed face he tried to cover with a grimace that she knew was supposed to be a smile. She knew because it was the same face he spat at her for years before the divorce. Jason didn’t seem to pick up on the unpleasant awkwardness that hung around the quiet hospital room like the stench of death. He rattled on and on about the mechanics of chess and how his day at school was and his recent math test and anything that popped into his head. Trina could tell that Whizzer appreciated Jason’s childhood innocence more than anything. Whenever someone comes to visit, their cheerfulness is always overshadowed by fear and sadness. Jason had told her after a visit last week that he wanted Whizzer to get better soon so that he wouldn’t keep falling asleep in the middle of games and Trina has to keep her breathing steady and eyes dry as she drove home. It was harder than anything she had ever done before.

Taking a steadying breath at the memory, Trina slowly put the white king into the box and shut the lid, trying to be as gentle as possible so as not to disturb Whizzer. He wasn’t sleeping, not yet, he was simply staring off into the middle distance, eyes detached and glassy and breathing harsh. She opened her mouth to say something,  _ anything _ , but the words didn’t come and neither did Whizzer’s breath for one second, two, three, and she stopped breathing, too, and put a hand on his shoulder and he jerked and the air left her lungs like an air conditioning unit kicking to life. His head snapped over to look at her and she wanted to ask if he was alright but the raw emotion in his eyes stopped her.

“Trina,” he rasped, breath rattling in his lungs like the box clutched to her chest.

“Whizzer?” she asked in response, voice rasping in a mirror image to his.

“... I’m sorry. I want you to know that I’m sorry.” 

The cockiness she was used to hearing in his voice was as lost as his tone. His eyes avoided hers, his fingers picked at a loose thread in his sleeve, his breath caught in his throat. So did hers. She had waited 3 years for him to say those words but now that he had she was left feeling at a loss. She didn’t, couldn’t say anything. She didn’t know what would come out of her mouth if she opened it so she pursed her lips instead and looked away from Whizzer, towards the striped window. Whizzer took this as a sign to continue.

“I know it’s my fault that you got divorced and I can’t help feeling like if I hadn’t gotten… involved with Marvin that you’d still be happy and Jason wouldn’t have to deal with this broken family and it’s all my fault and maybe if I had-” he was hyperventilating and the unshed tears that had become a permanent fixture in his brown eyes had finally fallen, streaking down his cheeks and dripping from his chin. 

Trina didn’t want this.

For 3  _ fucking _ years she felt like she needed  _ something _ from Whizzer. An apology, a greeting card,  _ ‘Sorry for fucking your husband!’ _ ,  _ anything _ . But what she didn’t admit to herself was that she didn’t hate Whizzer. How could she? They were like two sides of the same, rusted, shitty penny. They shared each other’s lives and Trina did not hate herself. Not anymore.

Dropping the chess box on the rolling table, Trina stooped down and brought Whizzer’s thin,  _ too thin oh my  _ god _ she could feel his ribs _ , body into her arms, squeezing in a way she hoped was comforting. She felt weak hands grip the fabric of her cardigan and wracking sobs shudder through his body. She let him cry, feeling like herself from 5 years ago, from when Jason was 7 and he fell and scraped both knees and ran to her and she held him and held him and  _ held him _ , not wanting to let go, not wanting him to grow up and leave her. The same helpless and desperate feeling pierced her chest and she wished, despairingly, that in holding to him, she could keep death from ever getting to him.

“It’s not your fault, you have nothing to apologize for, you didn’t  _ make _ Marvin unfaithful. He was never mine.” She whispered into his gray beanie, stroking a firm hand up and down his back. She felt more than heard protests murmured into her shoulder but she ignored them. They stayed like that, silently wrapped in an embrace for 3 minutes and 27 seconds, she counted, and Trina dwelled on the dramatic irony that they’d only discussed their problems with each other when one of them was on their deathbed and wasn’t that just like them. 

“You have to take care of him. For me. When I’m gone. You know he can’t take care of himself. He needs-,” Whizzer’s voice was choked with emotion. He pulled away from her, but kept his hands gripped tightly around her shoulders, distant brown eyes locked sharply to hers. “He needs someone to care of him. He can’t-” he stopped himself then, forcing a breath before continuing. “I’ve seen the news, Trina, I know what I must have. I know it’s contagious and I know how it's passed to others. I’m not stupid and- God, I don’t want him to be alone when he’s like me.” he sounded so broken and defeated that Trina couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. “Promise me you’ll take care of him, Trina. I want him to feel as loved as I feel and I won’t be there to love him. He needs someone to love him.” 

The pieces of Whizzer’s broken face had hardened, sharpened, and Trina caught a glimpse of the man who swaggered everywhere he walked, who took pictures of pretty sunrises, who taught her son to bat, who’s popped collars and coiffed hair had drawn Marvin in, who sung softly to Jason as he fell asleep, who loved her ex-husband so hard and strong that it hurt her to simply watch. The cataclysm of a man who always seemed to bring joy and heartbreak in the same breath. The same man who she had, somehow, begun to think of as family. He gripped her shoulder with all the strength he could muster and she shed a tear, mourning the man who had wormed his way into her family and who she could never hate, not ever.

“I know. I… I will. I promise.” And she meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> hey im hail and im crying over this beautiful musical at 3am.


End file.
